Chapter 13: Doors

I could hear them arguing from where I stood.

 

Mages gestured with hands still trembling from the failed ritual. Soldiers shifted their weight, uncomfortable, caught between authority figures who couldn’t agree on whose fault this was.

 

The Six-Circle mage stood at the center of it, and for the first time since I had laid eyes on him, the arrogance was gone. In its place was something colder. Frustration ground down to a hard, clinical edge.

 

“It’s impossible,” he said, his voice cutting through the overlapping arguments. “We can’t continue.”

 

The words landed heavy. A few of the surrounding officers flinched as if struck.

 

“Every crystal is compromised,” the mage continued, holding one up between two fingers. Even from a distance, I could see the flicker of its glow. “Fractured. All of them. The entire reserve.”

 

He let the crystal drop. It hit the stone with a dull clink.

 

“Who was responsible for quality check?” the mage demanded, turning slowly, his gaze sweeping across the assembled officers and logistics personnel. “Who checked these before they were placed?”

 

Silence.

 

“The inspection protocol was supposed to be handled by Third Division…”

 

“Third Division was reassigned to perimeter duty two days ago. The crystals fell under Logistics…”

 

“Logistics received them already crated. We assumed they’d been verified at source…”

 

“At source? The source is a mining operation three hundred kilometers from here. You think they test individual crystals before shipping?”

 

Voices climbed over one another. Fingers pointed. Faces reddened. Each officer tried to slide the responsibility sideways like a game of hot potato.

 

The Six-Circle mage watched them with the expression of a man watching insects fight over a crumb.

 

He didn’t intervene.

 

The argument ate itself. It spiraled inward, consuming energy and producing nothing, until finally the voices began to thin and the silences between accusations grew longer.

 

A tall officer stepped forward. He wore a uniform that carried more decoration than most. His face was drawn tight, jaw set.

 

“The expedition is concluded,” he announced.

 

“Mana crystals of this quantity and quality are expensive,” the officer continued. “Replacing them will take months. We don’t have the resources to extend operations beyond this point.”

 

He paused, letting the weight of it settle.

 

“However,” he added, and his tone shifted, lighter now, the practiced pivot of a man who knew how to frame failure as success, “the expedition has recovered several relics and artifacts of significant value. These findings alone justify the operation.”

 

A murmur rippled through the personnel. Relief, mostly.

 

“We will begin withdrawal procedures immediately.”

 

I stood in the crowd and felt something crack open inside my chest.

 

It took every shred of discipline I possessed not to smile.

 

My face stayed neutral. My posture remained the slouched, unremarkable stance of a student who had no reason to care about logistics failures or crystal quality or the political maneuvering of officers trying to save face.

 

But inside, behind the mask I’d learned to wear through death after death after death.

 

 

The word bloomed in my mind like sunlight breaking through smoke.

 

 

No gate opening. No corridor of fire.

 

 

Not today at least.

 

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to collapse onto the stone and press my forehead against the cold ground and just cry.

 

I didn’t.

 

I kept my face still and my hands at my sides and let the relief wash through me.

 

 

The thought was so fragile I was almost afraid to think.

 

 

My gaze drifted toward the colossal gate at the far end of the cavern. It stood sealed. The runes on its surface were dark.

 

The hour had passed.

 

The time when the gate should have opened, when the ritual should have fed mana and split those doors apart, that window had closed.

 

I stared at the gate for a long moment, letting the certainty settle.

 

An annoying voice shattered the moment.

 

“Sir!”

 

Blut von Omstr pushed through the crowd near the ritual circle. His face was flushed, mustache bristling, and his small eyes burned with the fury of a man who had found someone else to blame.

 

“The last personnel to handle the crystals,” Blut announced, loud enough for every officer within thirty meters to hear, “were first-year students assigned to cleaning and inspection duty.”

 

The tall officer turned slowly.

 

“First-years?” he repeated.

 

“Under my supervision,” Blut confirmed, and the way he said my supervision made it clear he intended the phrase to function as a shield rather than an admission. “They were tasked with basic quality checks. “

 

They broke them. Not us. Them.